


You Woke Up This Morning, It's a Wonderful Kind of Day

by Colonel_John_Jakob



Category: Arthur (Cartoon), The Sopranos
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Gabagool, I Don't Even Know, Marc Brown and David Chase would be proud I hope, New Jersey, This is incredibly dumb but also very fun to write, This will probably be at least five or six chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:35:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28917672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colonel_John_Jakob/pseuds/Colonel_John_Jakob
Summary: The great Soprano-DiMeo crime family looks to Elwood City for action, with potentially disastrous consequences....
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. It Was a Very Good Year on the Crazy Bus

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that there is (or will be) a fair amount of profanity and violence in this story. There are also instances of characters expressing prejudice and using derogatory Italian American slang words for groups of people. I do not approve of these views and words and am merely writing in the voices of characters who have canonically made similar remarks.

“Ton’”, came a voice from the front door of Bada Bing!

Tony Soprano turned his great, bulbous-nosed face towards the doorway, taking his eyes off this afternoon’s slate of curvaceous dancers for just a minute.

It was Paulie.

“Eyy, Paulie Walnuts! Sit down! Tell me everything you learned ‘bout that town we discussed the other day. Think it’s rich ground for this thing of ours?” Alighting on a barstool, Paulie faced Tony with his wizened, gray-sideburned features.

“This town, Elwood City they call it, it’s all full of talkin’ _animales_ , like in a cartoon. But they got a lot of human characteristics. They walk on two legs, have jobs, send their kids to school — hell, they even have Jews and _moulinyans_ over there.”

“Damn, and I thought it was some white-bread _madigan_ place.”, wisecracked Tony.

“It is mostly. But we got some good connections goin’ over there. I sent Hesh over there to talk to this Jew monkey—”

“Yo, Paulie, watch it with the cracks about Jews. It’s fine with Hesh cuz we know him bu—-”

“ _Ton’_ , he’s literally a monkey. They’re talking animals, ‘member?”

“Oh, yeah,” replied Tony, thinking to himself, _How da fuck did this town happen without it being on the news? The FBI tries whipping my ass and it’s all over the TV at ten o’clock, but this whole town of animals just flies under their radar? How_ stunod _do you hafta be? Then again, think about what’s in the water in Jersey and it kinda makes sense. Only in this polluted shithole state, I guess._

“Anyways, so Hesh meets with this monkey, and he thinks you might have more in common with him than he does. This monkey is a garbageman.”

“Ah, a fellow brother in waste management”, smirked Tony.

“Exactly. I think we could move in on Elwood City’s garbage contracts real good. The Jewish trash-monkey — here, I’ll write down his name on a cocktail napkin, _Oliver Frensky_ — he’s active in the union chapter there, and as you know we’re already in tight with the garbageman unions everywhere else. Won’t take much to grease his palms.”

“Despite all them being _a_ _minals_ and all that, this town sounds ripe for the pickin’.”

“That’s the spirit, Tony. There also this _fanook_ rodent, Nigel Ratburn—-”

" _A fanook madigan_ , that ain't rare!” Paulie chuckled at Tony’s little homophobic crack.

“Yeah, so this Ratburn was just elected head of the teacher’s union chapter, and we think that might be an in. We’re already moving in on the gay bars and clubs downtown, and with his help we could run them all in six months' time.

“We’ve also got another monkey to look into — Ed Crosswire’s his name. Real big-talking new money type, runs a used car dealership.”

"See, I’m not the only one to get rich offa crime, Paulie!”, laughed Tony, supremely amused at his own joke. _If this mafia shit wasn’t so profitable, I coulda been a Hollywood comedian! Joined my sistah out west, get into all that weird new age bullshit wit’ her! Instead she comes back here and wrecks my life._

“You’re more right than you know, Ton’. Crosswire’s not just ripping people off on jalopies to get his money — that’ll get you far, but this _strunz_ 's got college buildings named for him. Nah, we know he’s been trafficking some shit on the side, and that dealership’s just a front. He still gets ‘bout half his profits from saddlin’ poor fucks with lemons, but he’s looking to expand it all the way, move old cars to look busy, make running drugs and guns and other good shit the primary thing. And he’d like our protection.”

Tony broke out into a mischievous grin, the kind he always got when something devious was going down.

“I think it’s time to help our furry friends in Elwood City, Paulie.”

“Right on, Ton’”, said Paulie, fatherly, patting Tony on his back, “Right fuckin' on”.


	2. Mammals of the Meadowlands

Tony Soprano’s car darted down a country road, with Paulie riding shotgun and Christopher and Silvio in the two back seats. Ancient oaks and maples, 18th century farmhouses, white-tailed deer grazing in forest clearings — all reduced to an indistinguishable smear of green and brown from the car’s window. These sights — while of great interest to the naturalist or antiquarian — were of no interest to either Tony or his passengers. 

They drove through a particularly tree-crowded, old-growth wood, the winding path of the road taking a sharp leftward turn as it ran along the side of a reedy marsh. Ducks — _them goddamn ducks again_ , thought Tony — quacked softy on the blue-brown water’s surface. They drove for ten minutes, completing an arc of half the main lake’s circumference before veering once again onto another quiet lane, and then onto a busy trunk road. Another ten minutes elapsed, and they reached their exit, trailing into small banks of trees and hedges with that huge sign — _ELWOOD CITY — ½ MILE_. 

They entered into a far more developed, suburban environment, replete with strip malls, gas stations, and condominiums. Further, the humans driving on the highway were replaced by animals walking on two legs. A family of bears pumped gas into their station wagon, while two dogs emerged from a 7-11 with bags of groceries and packs of cigarettes.

“ _Marone_ ” _,_ growled Silvo, “this is some cruel joke of God’s.”

“Yo Silvio,” half-yelled Tony, “don’t say too much about that, okay? It’s gonna be weird, but there’s gonna be some good money and loyal customers here — don’t upset the balance.” Silvio just grunted and sulked — although given his strange, scowling face, perhaps no negativity was meant. 

Gradually, the convenience stores and mid-income apartments faded into high-end houses — from Victorian cottages to decade-old McMansions — shaded by sky-high hardwood trees. An aardvark in a baby-blue polo shirt mowed his lush, sun-dappled lawn. A teenage girl cat and her younger brother — _Jesus, just like my Meadow and A.J._ — chatted quietly on their patio. The street grew ever quieter, the din of the commercial, mixed-income strip it had been fading into the soft, gray-gold light of a New Jersey afternoon.

“Fuck, you could kill a fella here and no one’d for years”, Christopher mused, smiling, half-joking out loud. No laughs, but no condemnation, either. Quiet returned to the automobile.

To break the silence, Tony switched on the car radio. It was playing the hot new track by Finnish folk-rock band Binky, “Matalij Ja Mustii”. “Apparently this is about horny _goomads_. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Apparently some people can understand that stupid fucking Viking language.”

Laughs all around. “Fuckin’ A”, exclaimed a jovial Paulie, hitherto mostly silent.

The houses had grown larger and farther apart. Many had tall, black gates now, with expensive imported European cars in their long driveways. In one of them, a rabbit in a natty tailored suit remotely opened his garage door, revealing the fender of a shining ebony Bentley.

Suddenly the great dark trees thinned out, and the sun blazed hot in the sky. The mafioso’s car circled around a bustling intersection, lousy with cars driving every which way. The intersection was fronted by two vast, oceanic parking lots. One was for Mill Creek Mall, a typical upscale suburban Jersey mall. The other had acres of cars, in all conditions, from all makers, aligned like gleaming insects seemingly to the horizon line. A scarlet banner with white letters read _CROSSWIRE MOTORS WELCOMES YOUR BUSINESS!!!_

  
Tony grinned, smugly. _Yeah, you’re getting the customers you really want now._


End file.
